A Flight Attendant on United’s Plan to Finally Merge Continental Crew and an Absurd United Claim…

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Ummm Gary, on the seat size regulation point, you’re quoting yourself. I’m not really sure if the intent was to show that you agree with yourself or to show that you were quoted in a national publication.

  2. The other unintended consequence of the misguided seat size bill would be if the size is set at or below any current seat pitch offering, then all the carriers would be incentived to drop their pitch down to the minimum allowable, since the gov’t has basically endorsed the move.

    If there was any regulation I’d be in favor of, it’s simply to mandate disclosing the seat pitch/width when making purchase decisions.

  3. How dares the Economist name you “a travel writer” without mentioning your thought-leadership or at least your Hyatt status. Such peasants.

  4. Ok, Cranky, we’ll have Brooks and Dunn performing in the forward galley to justify my thinking, but it’ll cost ya even more.

  5. Over and over and over we get the cr0p and nonsense that passengers can “choose” between larger and smaller seats.
    Listen, it just isn’t true.
    #1 Many of us live outside the range of departing/arriving at the ten largest airports. We have no choice. We barely have ANY airline service. We take what we can get, usually wasting most of a day flying to some hub airport, whiling away time there before we get on another cramped flight to where we want to go. That is NOT choice.
    #2. The oft-used for illustration misery airline, Spirit, actually does fly from my airport, two times a WEEK to one location. That is NOT choice.
    #3. What we do get, even for 2-3+ hour flights are Embraer jets or similar, period. That IS the choice Actually, I’m okay with these, though many people are not. However, it is NOT choice. They are like sitting in a hotel-supplied straight chair for hours in a conference room without the freedom to move.
    #4. Overall, there are many fewer flights and just as many people flying. That means every seat, good and bad, is filled. That simply does NOT equal choice. Numerically it cannot.
    #5. Airlines cadge and weasel on supplying information on the seating — or even the plane. I am one of the people who works at getting comfortable seating. It matters to me a lot as I get older and less flexible, but not much shorter. Yet, paying money or using miles, I seldom get what I paid for. Or, yes, on one flight, but not the other. Or, my paid-for seat is pre-empted for someone who needs it more. That’s entirely reasonable EXCEPT airlines do nothing to provide a decent alternative.
    Airlines are squeezing passengers — literally and figuratively — for every dime. I now hate flying except long-haul business class on foreign carriers. All of you who have to fly for work have my pity.
    But, quit trying to promote this particular deceptive nonsense about “choice.”

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